Lusi Zhang, PharmD, PhD, MHI

I am dedicated to advancing precision therapeutics and clinical pharmacology through research that harnesses pharmacogenomics and real-world data to improve medication safety and effectiveness. My work centers on understanding how genetic variation, polygenic risk, medication exposures, biomarkers, and social, clinical, and environmental factors shape differences in treatment response, adverse effects, disease progression, and patient outcomes. I am especially focused on patients with mental health conditions, where trial-and-error prescribing, medication burden, and co-occurring medical issues make treatment decisions particularly complex.  
 
My journey in research began with a central question: why do patients receiving the same medication experience such different benefits, side effects and long-term outcomes? This curiosity was deepened during my pharmacy practice in long-term care facilities, where I saw firsthand the challenges of balancing medication safety and effectiveness for patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions and intellectual disabilities. These experiences inspired me to explore how genomic, biomarker, and real-world evidence could be integrated to guide more individualized care. I believe that discovery alone is not enough; we must also understand how precision-medicine approaches are implemented, who benefits from them, and whether they improve care equitably in everyday practice.  
 
One notable area of my research has been the real-world evidence of psychiatric pharmacogenomics within a large Midwestern health system. By building and analyzing an EHR-linked cohort of patients who received psychiatric pharmacogenomic testing, I have examined who receives testing, the clinical relevance of test results, and whether testing influences prescribing patterns and healthcare utilization. This work has highlighted both the promise of pharmacogenomics and the need to address disparities and improve clinical workflows so that precision-medicine tools can be implemented more equitably and efficiently. I have also contributed to studies through the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) Consortium, identifying how disease genetic susceptibility and medication burden may jointly influence cognition and brain structure in psychotic disorders.  
 
Throughout my training at the University of Minnesota, I received research and career-development support from the University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Graduate School, as well as from national professional societies and foundations including the Healthy Americas Foundation, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the Pharmacogenomics Global Research Network, and the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists Foundation. These opportunities have shaped my development as an independent investigator in precision medicine. My mission is to develop practical, evidence-based tools that help clinicians make safer, more individualized treatment decisions, especially for children and adolescents, who remain underrepresented in clinical research.